Great Android games, now on your ChromeOS laptop

The arrival of the Play Store on Chromebooks provides more productivity options, but when work is over, you can also play some cool Android games on Chrome OS now. Not all games will be suited to a Chromebook—not Chromebooks have touchscreens, and some games don't even run. We've gone through the Play Store to find ten fantastic games that will be perfect for your Chromebook, and here they are.

Leap Day

Platformers usually have pretty simple control schemes, but Leap Day takes it to the extreme. All you have to do is click or tap, and that makes it ideal for a Chromebook. It should work flawlessly on everything—all you need to do is click in the game window to jump and double-jump, climbing the world level by level. Leap Day has a neat retro design and the course is different every day, hence the name.

Monument Valley

Monument Valley is one of the most captivating and well-regarded puzzle games on Android. You have to guide the lost princess through a bizarre world of forced-perspective illusions, which are as clever as they are stunning. This game works extremely well on a Chromebook because all the character movement is handled by a click, and manipulating the environments is as easy as clicking and dragging. Monument Valley costs $0.99 to start and there's a $1.99 expansion available via in-app purchase.

Battlevoid: Harbinger

Space is a dangerous place in Battlevoid: Harbinger, but building a fleet of powerful starships can keep you safe when you jump into a new system. This is a top-down real-time space strategy game. Gameplay consists of telling your ships where to go, but you can also use advanced fire commands to concentrate on specific targets. It all works perfectly on Chromebooks. This game has some roguelike elements, so you'll have to start over if you are outmaneuvered. It's challenging, but also very fun.

Tiny Tower

Tiny Tower is a casual game, but it might also be the most distracting game on the list. In this game, you manage a tower populated by tiny pixel-art people. By building new shops and attractions, you'll earn money to add more floors. This in turn lures in more residents to work and live on those floors. You have to check in on your tower frequently to keep it running smoothly, and the game window fits perfectly at the edge of your Chromebook's screen. You know, so you can constantly distract yourself while you try to do other things. Sorry.

Redcon

Redcon is another real time strategy title, but it plays completely differently from Battlevoid: Harbinger. In Redcon, you are in command of a battle fortress bristling with guns. Your goal is to eliminate the enemy fortress by targeting it with your weapons in the most strategic way possible. All the controls are accessible by pointing and clicking, but you'll have to be fast. Redcon can be a difficult and unforgiving game. It also looks fantastic on any device, Chromebooks included. You can try it for free, then unlock the full version for $0.99-$5.99. Each tier includes more optional goodies.

Exploding Kittens

From the warped yet hilarious mind of The Oatmeal, Exploding Kittens is a card game sure to elicit a few laughs. The digital version is available on Android, so it's available on Chromebooks now too. The goal is to use your cards to make sure other players draw the exploding kitten card instead of you. You can play online versus strangers or your friends, and all you need to do is click and drag to play your cards. It also understands multitouch trackpad scrolling. This game $1.99 with a few optional expansion sets.

Out There: Omega Edition

The space exploration game Out There is no walk in the park. It's actually an arduous trek through an unforgiving universe of black holes, hostile aliens, and treacherous planets. The choices you make in Out There will either get you home or lead to your death. Probably the second, because this Roguelike game is extremely difficult. Only by managing your resources and making the right calls in tough situations will you survive. All your interactions with this game are through clicking and dragging, so it works just fine on a Chromebook. There's also no rush while you're playing, so you can leave it in the background for a bit while you do something more productive than run out of oxygen for the 20th time.

Kingdom Rush Origins

Tower defense games predate Android by a good long time, so a game that sticks to the tried and true elements of the genre should work fine on a Chromebook. The finest example of such a game on Android is Kingdom Rush Origins. This game is exquisitely well-balanced, has a ton of towers and upgrades, and there are heroes you can move around the battlefield to thin out the waves of enemies. You will have to do a lot of rapid pointing and clicking to keep up, but Kingdom Rush Origins is perfectly playable on a Chromebook.

Please, don't touch anything

All you have to do is avoid pressing the tempting red button in Please, don't touch anything, an unusual puzzle game that works wonderfully on Chromebooks. That's the boring way to win, though. If you start fiddling with the controls, you'll be able to find your way to 25 different endings as you decipher the bizarre and esoteric controls. It turns out the console you've been entrusted with basically controls everything. You can cause a zombie apocalypse, travel through time, and more.

Plague Inc.

Would you like to see humanity wiped from the face of the Earth? That's the goal in Plague Inc., a mobile simulation game that plays perfectly on Chromebooks with a mouse or trackpad. You begin with an innocuous disease, but through spreading you get DNA points to mutate and become more infectious and deadly. You don't have to do too much clicking around in Plague Inc. It's basically long periods of waiting and careful observation as you accumulate DNA points, then lots of quick moves to improve your disease and outfox the humans. It's free to try with ads, but a $0.99 in-app purchase unlocks the full version. There are also some expansions you can buy.